Limitless Path Chapter Seven Hundred Eight (Patreon)

Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Bell

Beth had enjoyed the short conversation with the guards, though the man at the top of the tower hadn’t impressed her. Then again, her enhanced perception had been able to see even the guard on the other tower shaking his head as Jones stuck his foot in his mouth and asked foolish questions, so she was guessing it was more of an isolated thing than anything else. When she had teleported away from the guard tower she had stayed nearby, teleporting to the edge of one of the buildings on the roof and distorting space around her. She used a combination of skills and her Ideal, which meant it was far from perfect and was something she was still just starting to get the hang of, but to fool some Awoken? It was far more than enough.

She watched the gate opening process for the day, with groups leaving and spreading out around the neighborhood, now a small city in its own right, before she turned and disappeared with a step. Not that she needed to be fancy with her teleports, but teleporting was such an integral part of her, or spatial manipulation itself, that she often did it without even thinking. She appeared by the city hall, or what used to be the city hall, though the building there now was massive and she was pretty sure it didn’t serve that purpose anymore. Well, saying it was massive was a bit of an exaggeration, but she was used to it having been a one story building, though that was from many years ago. Even after it was rebuilt, it was only two stories, but now it was eight and covered a slightly larger footprint, only leaving a small area of grass by the front and back edge.

Frowning a bit, Beth took a step and appeared in her home cul-de-sac, only to find that vastly changed as well. She guessed it was lucky, to an extent, that they hadn’t made more changes than what they already did, but it was weird to see all the homes and buildings looking vastly different. Her family home had been rebuilt again some time in the last couple years since she had last visited and she was a little surprised at how it looked now. Not that the change was all that bad, necessarily, but it was still crazy to come home to a home that wasn’t the home she remembered, even if it was an improvement over what was there. She teleported inside with a thought, finding that everything was vastly different, including the number and arrangement of bedrooms, though there were still far more than just her parents would need.

She couldn’t detect her parents in the house, which wasn’t really a great surprise, and she teleported away, scanning the city before she detected them in a different building. They had, in fact, moved the administrative hub of the city to a different location, and Beth teleported there without a second thought, popping into existence in an office on the fifth and topmost floor of the building. She had expected some kind of reaction, but she did at times forget just how advanced she was, as she had appeared without triggering any kind of defense or alarm or even proccing anyone’s skills or abilities. Consequently, she just was suddenly standing in a corner of the room and nobody noticed for a good fifteen seconds as she examined the place, seeing both her parents there along with several people she didn’t recognize. Eventually, someone did detect her, though they clearly didn’t recognize her.

“Who are you? How’d you get in here?” the lone guard in the room demanded as he confronted Beth.

“I’m a spatial mage, and, I’m a spatial mage,” Beth replied, smirking as the man first looked confused before starting to become angry.

“Beth!” exclaimed her mother then, and that stopped the guard short.

Her mother and father both made their way over to her, giving her hugs, which entirely threw the guard off, but if two members of the city were hugging the stranger, she probably wasn’t a stranger. At least he was a lot quicker on the uptake than Jones seemed to be, but then again, she wasn’t exactly being fair, comparing someone guarding the city council directly with a brand new recruit. After hugging her parents and getting through the necessary greetings, she moved into a side room with them, which was her father’s office, though they mostly worked in the main area when they were in the building.

“Beth. It’s been a while,” her mother started, still a little awkward around her.

“I’ve been busy,” Beth replied with a shrug, leaning against the wall inside the door and adjusting her weight a bit so the wall wouldn’t groan.

“Well, tell us about it. It’s been more than a year since we’ve even seen you in person,” her father said.

“Really not a lot going on. Just leveling up and working, not much else to tell. I’m a lot more interested in what’s been going on here,” Beth said, jerking her head to the side towards where the rest of the city would be.

“Here as in here, here, or as in on Earth?” her father asked, pointing first to the building before pointing vaguely around himself.

“Well, both, but I haven’t really heard anything outta this place for a while,” Beth replied with a slight frown. “Other than you guys sending me a couple messages, I haven’t had anything from anybody back on Earth, though usually it’s only Kim and the others than send stuff when they’re here. Any big changes, other than the buildings, in the city? Any big changes on Earth?”

“Well, we’re doing quite fine,” her mother said, sharing a glance with her father. “As it is, we’ve been making good progress on rebuilding our little neighborhood into a proper city. We’ve gotten more land under control and within the walls, built or rebuilt buildings, and have pushed to have the guards level and train almost religiously. We’ve got new people flocking here, both to stay as permanent residents, and as visitors who are willing to pay a premium for everything and anything. We have two hotels now with expanded capacity, and apartment building that’s entirely for people staying here in the short term, with lots of one month leases and the like, and several new visitors quarters.”

“You’re mother has been taking the lead on housing for a while,” her father stated as he sat back, making a non-alcoholic drink appear out of thin air. “As for myself, I’ve had to handle the business that have been popping up or wanting to pop up. We’ve got a smith with a large smithy, two tailors, a leatherworker with several apprentices, alchemists, enchanters, four different shops either selling general goods or specializing, and a handful of niche cases. Even without it being an overwhelming number, making sure everyone both stays happy and follows all the rules is very time consuming, and we’ve had trouble with a shop being a little less…receptive to how we do things here. That’s already been taken care of, though, so don’t worry about it.”

He had held a hand up, as if Beth was going to sprinting out of the room to blast the shop to smithereens, but that wasn’t her style, nor did she care all that much. If they had been seriously hurting people or something, that was one thing, but bureaucratic wrangling over taxes or some such didn’t hold any interest for her. “Well, that’s good to hear. You don’t need any help or money from myself or anyone else?”

“No, Beth, we’re quite fine, though we might not have the kind of wealth I’ve heard rumor you have access to,” her mother said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beth asked, though in a mild tone, giving her mother a raised eyebrow.

“I’ve heard a rumor about someone spending lots of money at an auction. Was it to a sword this time, and at a ridiculous price?” her mother replied, but her tone was light.

Still, it looked like her parents were a bit behind, if her buying the greatsword she still used quite often that had an influence over death mana was their knowledge of her last big purchase. In light of that, she spent just a minute going over some of what she had been up to on that front, though she didn’t dive into details surrounding Millennia’s Echo or the auction there. No reason to stress her parents out over something that wasn’t really all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, nor was there anything they could really do with any of the information other than worry about what she was getting into. She did explain that they had purchased a second house that was rather nice, but she also said it was on a planet that wasn’t nearly as easy to get to or hop in or out of as Zephyr Prime was, which was far more open to guest than Millennia’s Echo, and even more so than the City of Mended Dreams.

“Where’s your lovely wife right now? Is she here, too, or is she busy?” her father then redirected them.

“Well, she had some business to take care of, so she’s out for a little right now. Then again, she left to do that shortly after I went to that Trial, so she’ll probably be back not too long from now,” Beth said.

“Oh? What Trial is this? The way you said it with a capital ‘T,’ I’m assuming it’s one of those ones that you get teleported for or whatever?” her mother asked, giving Beth an arch look.

“Yeah, it’s exactly that,” Beth said, nodding firmly. “I got a little token at an auction some time back that’s been burning a hole through my pocket, as they say, and I finally used it a couple months ago. The token only let one person use it, or only worked on one person, and it teleported the bearer to a special area to participate in a Trial. It’s called ‘The Great Climb,’ and was a real pain in the ass the whole way, though I guess the challenge was fun.”

“Really difficult or…?” her father prodded when she fell silent.

“Oh, well, sorta,” Beth said, wiggling a hand side-to-side. “The main challenge was that it was a whole lot of fight in succession and the challenger has rather limited time to rest. I’m kinda glad I didn’t choose the hardest difficulty, as it was tiring even for me to do dozens of fights in a row with only small breaks or little bits of time moving between fights as the only recovery time. The challenge was enough that I felt like it really pushed me to be better and to get stronger, but I didn’t feel like it was something I couldn’t handle, even at the end where there were a hell of a lot of fights with very little rest.”

“As long as you’re safe, Beth. We worry about you,” her mother said, though her tone was kind and not lecturing.

“It’s a dangerous universe,” Beth said with a shrug. “I don’t mean to be so blasé about it, but I fight and do things people would consider crazy all the time. I don’t throw myself into danger without any plan, and I’m really strong, but there’s always risk. Then again, there’s always been risk; hell, how many people left their house and then got run over by a bus or something on the way to the store down the street before the world changed? It’s not like it’s really all that much crazier now.”

“But we are talking about random happenstance versus tossing yourself head first into danger repeatedly,” her father said with just a touch of reproach in his tone.

“Eh, it’s all the same in the end,” Beth said, shrugging. “I got where I am by facing challenges head-on. I’m not going to say sorry because of that. Anyway, what’s been happening around here more broadly?”

Her parents took a minute to explain about the area around the town and the changes, most of which she’d already gotten, but they had more information than just about anyone else. They were basically de facto running the town and had to have a broader view to both keep everyone safe and to try to guide the place towards prosperity. The biggest change was the new dungeon, which looked to be rather permanent, and had really made the town’s reputation soar, as three powerful dungeons within what was, essentially, walking distance was just too good for most people to pass up. There were now a few Empowered within the town, people between rebirth five and rebirth nine, and that was also helping with security and safety, though there weren’t any true powerhouses around, discounting Beth, who only stopped in from time to time.

“What about Sabs and the girls?” Beth asked.

“They stop in more often than you do, certainly,” her mother said in a slightly acrid tone, causing Beth to wince just very slightly and sigh. “But, they’ve started taking after you at this point. They’re back a couple times a year, which is enough to keep them in people’s minds, but not enough that they’re really that involved in the community anymore. They’ve also really pushed themselves the last year or two and I think they might surprise even you with where their strength shakes out.”

“Hmm, we’ll see about that,” Beth said, not willing to commit to praise or ridicule without seeing what was going on with them. “What about the bigger picture?”

“The bigger picture is sort of a mess right now,” her father said with a sigh. “Luckily, it’s been a little chaotic, which has let certain areas slip through the cracks long enough that the new ‘powers that be’ have had to come to us with hat in hand versus making demands. There’s a new government formed that’s trying to re-unify much of North America, but they’re having a tough time.”

“Too many beasts and the like?” Beth cut in to ask.

“One problem,” her father agreed. “It also took them a long time to get their act together; no real surprise there, if you were at all familiar with how the governments, especially the US government, was going before the change. They took a long time and didn’t really have many, or any, people that were pushing even as hard as your sisters to level and get powerful, which is a blessing, in some respects. I don’t think nearly anyone would have been as responsible with the amount of power you now wield as compared to you, as crazy as that is to say.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Beth said, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, well, that’s where the problems start…” her father said, sighing now himself.

“Do go on.”

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